Dustin - just wanted to say that I like your discussions. I'm Randy
Latimer...I've been teaching computer science in high school since the
early 80's, Pascal for years, now C++ and some Java. I looked at some
languages with alternative styles way back in the 80's - Lisp, Prolog,
Logo - taught them some in high school, but these languages didn't catch
on. The AP College Board pretty much dictates the main language we teach.
I tried to introduce C++ in the early 90's, but it was too soon, the
college board didn't switch to C++ until 98 or so, and that's when the
high school curriculum moved from Pascal to C++.
At what age do we introduce programming, and what language?...obviously
not a simple answer, depends who you talk to. Rice Univ. has been working
on introducing Scheme, I think it's the same kind of thing as introducing
Python as an intro language. I know Scheme/Lisp pretty well, new to
Python.
Randy